Denise Uyehara

Denise Uyehara is an American performance artist and writer.[1] She is the author of two full-length plays, Hobbies and Hiro.[2] Uyehara is a fellow of the Asian Cultural Council. She is the founding member of the performance group Sacred Naked Nature Girls, a group of four women of different ethnicities and sexual orientation, who use their bodies as a means to construct identities and inspire dialogue.[3] Uyehara’s art examines and explores immigration, race, sexuality, and gender. Her work is internationally recognized. and has been featured in exhibitions in Los Angeles, Helsinki, London, Tokyo, and Vancouver.[4]

Early life

Uyehara was born in 1966 in Tustin, California. Her parents were Japanese Americans. Uyehara attended the University of California at Irvine, graduating in 1989 with a BA in comparative literature. [5]She continued her education at the University of California Los Angeles, where she received her M.F.A. in arts.

Recent work

Her most recent works include Dreams & Silhouettes/Suenos y siluetas, a multidisciplinary installation piece that uses dancers, actors, and painters to discuss militarization, deportation, and detention in Tucson, Arizona. The piece was performed in 2014.[6] Shooting Columbus also premiered in 2014 and continues to develop. It investigates the consequences and ethics of time travel along with the United States’ continual genocide of its native people.[7] For this piece, Uyehara received the Network of Ensemble Theaters Travel Grant.[8] In 2012, Uyehara presented "Transitions," a project featuring James Luna that discusses cultural authenticity in the United States.[9] Later that year, Uyehara premiered Archipelago, a collaborative piece featuring video artist Adam Cooper-Teran that uses movement, images, and video to emphasize cultural survival and loss, spirituality, and deities in respect to the ancient myths of Okinawa.[10] She collaborated with Sri Susilowati in Pageantry, a performance piece that interrogates the cultural role of Asians in the Americas, in 2008.[11]

Other Works
  • Hobbies (1989) [5]
  • Hiro (1993)[5]
  • Headless Turtleneck Relatives (1993)[5]
  • Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels (1994)[5]
  • Maps of City and Body (1999)[5]

Awards and recognition

Uyehara's first major award was from AT&T: OnStage Productions for Hiro, at East West Players in 1994.[4] In 2011, she was named “Critic's Choice” by L.A. Weekly for her work with The Sacred Naked Nature Girls because she led workshops for artists in different communities including LGBT, women, people of color, and seniors.[4] She was inducted into the Asian Cultural Council in the Spring of 2013 for her work investigating the "migration across borders of identity" for Asian American people.[12]

References
  1. "About AAIR 2013 – Denise Uyehara". Pomona College. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
  2. Isenberg, Barbara (February 14, 1993). "Denise Uyehara: Testing Her Survival Skills - On the Job". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 February 2014.
  3. Stephenson, Andrew (1999). Jones, Amelia (ed.). Performing the body/performing the text (Transferred to digital print. ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 199–206. ISBN 0415190592.
  4. "Denise Uyehara". Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  5. Xu, Wenying (2012). "Historical Dictionary of Asian American Literature and Theater". ProQuest Ebook Central. Scarecrow Press.
  6. "Without Papers". Tucson Weekly. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  7. "Denise Uyehara". Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  8. "Nework of Ensemble Theatres". Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  9. "Denise Uyehara". Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  10. "Denise Uyehara". Retrieved 30 October 2014.
  11. Lei, Daphne (July 2010). "Ruptures Within and Without: Pageantry – A Work in Progress by Denise Uyehara and Sri Susilowati". Theatre Research International. 35 (2): 188–192. doi:10.1017/S0307883310000118. ISSN 0307-8833.
  12. "Asian American Studies". Retrieved 30 October 2014.
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